How will small businesses recover when we come out the other side?
Shirley and I walked down to Hunters Bar this morning. It's a slightly bohemian midtown district close to Endcliffe Park. There are many independent businesses in the area ranging from health food shops and cafes to picture framers, bakers and a vacuum cleaner repair shop.
It will be so hard for them to get back on their feet again. I took some photographs, recognising that in the future they could be used as historical evidence of something quite terrible that passed us by and changed the world we knew.
Yes, "See you on the other side"!
Let us keep faith that the "other side" will hold much of what we cherished before this.
ReplyDeleteHear hear my friend.
DeleteThis series of photos is actually very moving, YP. I have tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat. It's such tangible evidence of something that is otherwise quite intangible.
ReplyDeleteIt just occurred to me that they deserved to be photographed as evidence of these disastrous times.
DeleteYes, we'll all see each other on the other side. I agree with Jenny--this was a very moving post.
ReplyDeleteTake care. xx
Perhaps I will look out for more notices like these. Keep on keeping on Jennifer.
DeleteThere is great positivity in the way the messages are written. I like that.
ReplyDeleteOr is there an underlying hopefulness?
DeleteIt's the same here. Our favorite Greek restaurant shut down. The BBQ place is still open, but only take out. All restaurants here are take out only now. I guess we'll see what happens.
ReplyDeleteYou will have to learn to cook Greek cuisine in your lovely new kitchen Lily.
DeleteFor now we just have to hang on until we see the end of the virus.
ReplyDeleteSomewhere over the rainbow.
DeleteA sad sign of the times. Now multiply your pictures by many thousands and you have our current world. How did we get here so fast? It almost seems it hit us overnight although I know that is not the case.
ReplyDeleteYou could fill the internet with pictures of similar notices. I think of the balancing acts that independent businesses have to perform in normal times. This disaster will unbalance so many of them.
DeleteHere in Germany, all shops that are not grocery stores, bakers, butchers, pharmacies and the like are closed; restaurants are only allowed to offer food for pick up or delivery. It will be the death of many of them, no doubt about that. The government has put a huge action plan in motion that allows businesses and self-employed people to claim financial help, but how much of them will be able to survive on that is uncertain.
ReplyDeleteIt is the same here. The financial support will not fill the gaps entirely and for a long time customers will not get back into their old habits.
DeleteThey all seem remarkably positive. Many of them will find a way to get up and running again I think, because there will be a need. What we all desperately want is for things to get back to how they were, or as near as, as soon as possible.
ReplyDeleteThere is positivity there Jean but also a lot of hope.
DeleteHere our community is served mainly by small businesses, many of whom are obviously now closed and will struggle to survive if this goes on for too long. Although there is support available from government funds this may not be sufficient. Today, a new charity has been launched, with donations sought from island residents that will go into a fund to then be shared out amongst those in most need. We are all trying to pull together.
ReplyDeleteWe can only do our best but that will not be good enough to save so many small businesses.
DeleteSadly the fate of all small businesses, and many large ones too, is hanging in the balance, and the longer this pandemic continues the more precarious their future.
ReplyDeleteIt's a tourist area here, and all "social hubs" are closed indefinitely. No cafés or restaurants open, no take-aways - nothing. We wonder how many of them will survive and if our favourite eating places will be open again. Just the supermarkets and chemists open for business as usual. We've been warned that things are likely to get worse too, before it's over. Difficult to know how things can get worse - we don't even have the freedom to walk about as you still do.
Enjoy it while you can YP:
The weather is not encouraging today CG but on a nice day I will be out again with my walking boots on and if cops berate me I will keep my thoughts to myself. Sounds like things are much more restrictive in your neck of the woods. Luckily you have your dog to keep you company and give you a good reason for walking outside every day. Keep on keeping on CG.
DeleteWill do YP - and thanks for the encouragement. Wherever we are at this time, we must support one another.
DeleteMeanwhile Shirley was saying "Come on, hurry up, I'm always waiting for you, how many more photographs do you need?"
ReplyDeleteHa-ha! You are very right Mr Dunham!
DeleteSigns of our times YP. I am going to write a similar post later. Great minds think a like and fools seldom differ😊.
ReplyDeleteNo copying my ideas North Cider! They are protected by copyright laws.
DeleteCompared to people living in the refugee centres we are living in clover. Watched a programme on them this morning and it is heartbreaking to know that these people will not stand a chance.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant idea to take the photos, you will be able to get them out when you are in your dotage and show your grandchildren.
Briony
x
I am already in my dotage Briony but no grandchildren on the horizon - especially not now that my daughter's job is in jeopardy.
DeleteBritish spirit and humour will prevail, but it's heartbreaking to see so many people losing their income and livelihoods, effectively overnight, and for those who do survive the crisis, it is going to be years before they regain the lost ground. One thing that I do not understand is why dry cleaners are listed in the essential facilities. Laundrettes, I fully realise the need for, but surely even those who, in everyday life, dress in too-posh-to-wash clothing, are isolating in something more conducive to being flung in the washing machine. Small, hard-working shops go under whilst there are apparently those working from home in their tuxedos and dupion ball gowns, intermittently crying out, "Darling, I don't need to shop for food today, but I simply must catch Sketchleys and get the mink coat conditioned". Elizabeth.
ReplyDeletePoliticians and police officers need to get their suits, twin sets and uniforms dry cleaned. It is vital for the nation's survival that they stay open 24 hours a day. Also - what about their velvet curtains?
DeleteIf only the future we could foresee. But we can't. We can guess. Towards the end of the year there will be the "I told you so" from every side: right or wrong. Asquith would have been in his element "Wait and see.".
ReplyDeleteAnd some, unfortunately, will not see those days.
I hope that I am there as I haven't made a will yet. Also I want to visit Wolverhampton.
DeleteWHAT! Why on earth would you want to visit Wolverhampton? With great respect to those who live there I was once marooned there near the station for most of a day. I still shudder at the thought.
DeleteIt is one of only two English cities that I have never visited. The other being Chelmsford.
DeleteI once considered a job in Chelmsford. Two of my Godchildren lived in the area. It had only one disadvantage: it was in the South. Wolverhampton, on the other hand, doesn't even have that excuse.
DeleteYour antipathy towards Wolverhampton only increases my intrigue. I wonder if they have a tourist office.
DeleteIt is so sad, but many of the messages are positive, and hopefully the government will cough up to help. Garden centres are the latest hit, but ours had just opened a greengrocers in the back room, and she is offering plenty of food with perhaps the odd sack of compost lobbed in.
ReplyDeleteYou have revealed some sensitive information there Thelma! Compost is not a vegetable.
DeleteCompost is an essential supply. The stupidity is that you can order compost from a garden centre but not the things to grow in it. Leastways that's the information I have at this moment.
DeleteI don't think the government really thought through the garden centre issue.
DeleteIt's a worry whether these small businesses will survive. say it again... how can such a tiny organism cause so much chaos.
ReplyDeleteWhen I come across one of the organisms I shall ask it.
DeleteI see similar signs, of course. So many of our shops and restaurants are actually boarded up -- which seems so final.
ReplyDeleteSo final and so sad. The vibrancy and variety of our high streets is being sucked away before our eyes.
DeleteSome of the small businesses will have enough fortitude (and cash!) to weather the storm but I am afraid that most will not. What is to be at the end of this "war on a bug" will be so different. We must all hang on and wait and see.
ReplyDeleteAs Steve says, many places are not only closed in Denver, but boarded up. But, necessity being the mother of invention, the arts community on Broadway and Santa Fe have taken it upon themselves to create beautiful art works on those boards. And, on another street or two, people are writing poems and short stories and hanging them on the boards. Lovely!
After two weeks of isolation in this home and garden with each other, I told Big Bear that we should begin taking separate walks with the dog. Me in the morning and he in the afternoon. Enough togetherness, already!!
Shirley still works three days a week so we do have some healthy time apart. I think the separate dog walking is a good idea but Big Bear should have a big dog that fits his character - something like a Rottweiler called Tyson. Better still he could have a grizzly bear instead. This would help to consolidate social distancing.
DeleteMy fav part of Sheffield
ReplyDeleteI though you would like John Street best!
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